Ten Words #4: Rest & Remember

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"Observe the sabbath day and keep it holy." If there was a reason for why we discarded the Ten Commandments in the church of my youth, this fourth word was it. We don’t keep sabbath.

In support of this, we quoted verses such as Col 2:16, "Do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons or sabbaths." Christians in our tribe took this to mean that we should celebrate no religious days: no Christmas, no Easter & certainly no sabbath.

We also explained away sabbath by contrasting the old "Mosaic dispensation" with the new "Christian dispensation." Sabbath, or so it was told, was part of the old while Sunday church services were part of the new. It was all very matter-of-fact with a single, clear conclusion: We don’t observe sabbath!

But this simplistic view of sabbath misses the point. Sabbath is not a useless relic of the Mosaic law. Sabbath is not a holiday with pagan roots, not a recruitment tool for Judaism. Nothing in the New Testament outlaws sabbath. To suggest that the idea of sabbath no longer applies is to make an argument from silence—something we in the Restoration Movement have said was incorrect.

So what is sabbath? Sabbath can sustain our personal well-being while enabling us to relate well to God, to humankind and to all creation. The principles of sabbath were woven into creation; they were part of everyday life in Eden’s paradise. It is a gift from God freely given to all creation, and it’s a right bestowed upon all people, a right that must be (ironically) worked for and protected.

The Exodus and Deuteronomy accounts underscore this differently. In Exodus 20, we see that God worked six days in creating all things. On the seventh day, God rested. Sabbath therefore is about patterning our lives against the backdrop of God’s cycle of work and rest.

In Deuteronomy 5, we are told that God delivered us from slavery. We were once imprisoned by the tyranny of Pharaoh (or abuse or welfare or capitalism, etc.). In that world, we had no freedom to rest. Sabbath provides us with time to remember that God saved us and gave us a meaningful existence filled with hard work and regular rest. We remember that work does not set us free—God does that.

Simply put, sabbath is about resting and remembering. Tyrannical forces call us to alternate realities. These would deny us the possibility of rest and remembrance. But sabbath is the goal of the salvation story—and not just about pie in the sky in the sweet by and by. So as we reflect on the meaning of sabbath for our lives today, I invite you to ponder these words from Hebrews: "So then, a sabbath rest still remains for the people of God. . . Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest" (Heb 4:9-11).

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